A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
How Talking Therapies Meet Communities Where They Are
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The gap between everyday life and mental health support can feel wide—especially when money worries, stress, and isolation pile up. We bring that gap down to walking distance by teaming up with NHS Manchester Talking Therapies to offer free, practical help right inside our community food hubs. No waiting rooms, no jargon—just real conversations in a familiar space, and a clear path to tools that actually help.
Paula from Manchester Talking Therapies explains how their service supports common problems like anxiety and depression through one-to-one sessions, workshops, and guided online programmes like SilverCloud. We get into why first contact happens over the phone, how signposting to money, housing, and health services complements therapy, and why using everyday words—worry, sleep, feeling run down—opens the door for more people. The big insight: when support shows up where you already feel safe, the first step becomes smaller, and change feels possible.
We also talk numbers and nuance. Members report better physical and mental health simply from engaging with the hub community, and face-to-face contact remains a powerful catalyst after years of digital-only services. We dig into the tight link between affordability and wellbeing, share a moving story of someone finding confidence one small step at a time, and ask how to scale this model beyond Manchester while avoiding postcode lotteries. If you care about practical ways to make mental health care accessible, grounded, and human, this conversation shows what works and why.
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Hello and welcome back to the Tlights of Bread and Butter Leave it and Mark and the bread and butter thing.
SPEAKER_00We run a network of mobile food clubs that take nervous food from supermarkets, farms and factories. We take it straight into communities where families are struggling to get by.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for less than a tenner, our members get bags packed with fruit, veg, fridge food, and covered staples. It's a weekly shop that helps stretch the budget and take some of the pressure off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, our members are at the heart of everything we do. They turn food into friendship and neighbours into community, and that's what makes us tick.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and today we're going to be talking to talking therapies.
SPEAKER_00Let's have a listen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
Meet Paula From Talking Therapies
SPEAKER_01My name is Paula. I work for NHS Manchester Talking Therapies. I uh work there for quite a while. I've been a clinician there, but and I'm new to this role of doing community engagement, but I'm really liking it and finding that there's quite a lot of transferable skills. Um and you know, instead of just talking to one person in a room, you've got opportunity to talk to lots and lots of people. So that's brilliant.
What Support The NHS Service Offers
SPEAKER_00Set the scene a bit then. What is it that you do and what is the support you offer on a community level?
SPEAKER_01So Manchester Talking Therapies is an NHS service that helps people who are feeling low, stressed, or anxious. It's free and we offer things like one-to-one sessions, workshops, and we work in partnership with Silvercloud, which is an online cognitive behavioural therapy program, and that offers support for up to 12 months. And the practitioners at our service, we offer six support calls to help you cover most of the program and get really get going on it.
SPEAKER_00What sort of things do you address?
SPEAKER_01The main sort of remit is around anxiety and depression. So it's common mental health problems, everyday mental health issues really, that can be caused by a whole lot of things. So there's not a specific remit on what's caused that anxiety or that depression, that difficulty.
Why Partner With Food Hubs
SPEAKER_00And what brought you to bread and butter?
SPEAKER_01We linked up with that bread and butter thing because we know that you know money worries and economic structure is a high pressure currently. And not everyone is going to walk into a talking therapy service. So meeting people where they already felt comfortable just made sense for us. We know it's hard for people to have time and energy to reach out to us for support for themselves because they're going to prioritise supporting the needs of others, looking after their physical health, maybe, and other needs such as food and housing and bills. Exactly. People don't know how quick it can actually be to access well-being support before it becomes severe. There are actually lots of, we found lots of pockets of really excellent support, lots of charities providing different things. Everyone is very passionate about the difference they're making in communities and full of genuine, caring people who want to make those connections with people. We see ourselves as that too, so it's important that we're out and there in the community as well.
Taking Help Into Trusted Spaces
SPEAKER_00We strongly advocate face-to-face engagement as a first because conversations and those initial meetings, we find those help with barriers really. Is this typical for you guys to engage face-to-face in communities or is this a new approach for you?
SPEAKER_01So I've been there over 10 years now, and since I started as a clinician, part of my role was actually to from time to time get out and do community events and things. But obviously, we had, you know, as a clinician, I'd limited time to offer to that.
SPEAKER_00Because you've got appointments too, right?
Champions And Targeted Outreach
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you've got to manage, trying to, you know, support as many people as possible. But it was really good to go out and and see, you know, who was referring people into us, the people in their situations, in their communities, what they had around them. But now we've got a bit more of a coordinated effort. So we have champions for different roles, the sort of older adults or LBGTQI plus and long-term health conditions and neurodiversity and anything else. There's quite a few different champions, perinatal, all sorts of things. And they will look for specific events, you know, to reach certain groups. But we wanted to do more general things as well and give people more time. So I'm doing that most of the time. And my colleague is doing a lot of that online as well, because a lot of people who don't go out of their houses they access the social media.
SPEAKER_00Can you tell me a bit about the engagement with bread and butter and what were you expecting?
First Visits And Volunteer Role
SPEAKER_01I wasn't really sure, but all the volunteers were good, even though they were busy, they had a little bit of time to sort of tell me what was happening, what would be happening. And it was nice to talk to volunteers about our service beforehand as well, because I'm obviously not going to be at every hub every time. So the volunteers then, if they understand, they then could spread the word as well. To be honest, I was really surprised at how most people I spoke to were really open to talk about mental health. I've been to all of the hubs now and one of the bag drops. And I see that people there really look forward to actually going there and seeing each other. A lot of people they develop sort of little networks and support groups, even. And some people will open up and share their actual stories with me as well. And that's always a privilege, and I'm completely in awe of their strength and their courage.
Openness And Community Networks
SPEAKER_00And I do like the sharing and and the conversation, but I guess the flip side of it as well is that there are quite a lot of people that still don't. What does that do to somebody over time when they bottle it up?
SPEAKER_01It has a has an impact on them, sometimes physically as well. Um, because if if if you've got everything going around your head, it actually starts to affect you physically as well. So not only are you not concentrating, not performing well, not being able to do all the things you need to and really struggling. Long term, that's going to put a lot of pressure on your body physically as well, and you're gonna end up with physical health problems, which then you have to deal with on top of everything else. And I think sometimes it's only at that point when people go to their GP for physical health problems that maybe then they would hear about us. That's why I'd really like people to hear about us sooner as well.
The Cost Of Bottling Things Up
SPEAKER_00We know that there's a lot of people that, shall we say, put their head in the sand, and this is how we end up with people that manifest with physical problems that have started from mental problems, etc. But how do we make it more accessible so that it's easier for people to actually do this? Because I'm sure that a lot of people that you spoke to at our hubs were like, Oh, this is great, this is exactly what I need.
First Contact And Signposting
Making Access Feel Human
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that that being there in their space has taken that barrier down. But yeah, I think a lot of people think that therapy is very clinical, very formal, and it maybe you know it's not for people like them. You know, maybe they think actually it's it's very hard for me to articulate, to talk about, to find the words to actually speak about this. So actually, by being in these spaces and having just everyday conversations with people around mental health can make it feel less clinical and seem more human. Our approach is to have an initial appointment when you apply to us, we get you in as soon as possible for an appointment, and that's over the phone so you can be somewhere comfortable for yourself, and then having that chat with that practitioner to look at what the options are, what kind of therapies, what services are available, what support you could have, which might be more than one because you might you know come to do the therapy, but then also we might signpost you to somewhere else for some other help on you know, money, finance, housing, something else as well.
Everyday Language That Connects
SPEAKER_00Do you adapt your language as well? Is it more a chatty basis in the community?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we do we don't lead with talking about mental health or even well-being. We would just talk more about like worry, stress, sleep, feeling run down, grieving, everyday things that people can relate to.
One Small Step At A Time
SPEAKER_00There will be people that don't come to community spaces as well, and sometimes they just need something to help them get over that barrier. What would you say to somebody that's thinking about therapy now?
SPEAKER_01It is difficult, and I think just to think about it as one small step at a time, not worry about everything and and not think that you're making a really big commitment straight away. Some people just apply for the appointment, but then don't have the courage to answer the call, and that is okay, you know, you've you've taken one step a little bit further, and then sometimes next time or next time, or even next time, they will answer that call for that first appointment. And it really is just about having a chat. If you just get to that stage and think, you know, I don't know about going any further, or I don't want to, that is absolutely fine. At least you know how to access the service, you've talked to someone, you know what it's like, you can apply back again because there isn't a limit to the number of times that you can use our service, just obviously a limit on the number of sessions that you can have in it at one time, and that'll be dependent on see what your needs are.
SPEAKER_00How's the experience of working with bread and butter hubs been for you? What uh have you learnt anything?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it going there consistently has shown me how powerful it is to bring the support to where people are already. You know, it is changing the way we're thinking about how can we make therapy more accessible to people.
SPEAKER_00What's next for the bread and butter partnership?
Health And Affordability Linked
SPEAKER_01It grows, I think, organically as people like you find out more about what they need or what is possible. And we just want to keep growing that partnership now, keep the conversations going, help more people see who we are, see that we're really approachable, and that it's normal, it's normal to have everyday conversations about money worries, about mental health. And the more you do that, the more it doesn't feel like a big thing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, Vic, hit me with some numbers.
SPEAKER_02Well, do you know what? It's really tough, isn't it? Because there's lots of people that aren't feeling very well at the minute and and their health's not great.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02And so it's really important that people like Talking Therapies can come to our hubs and you know, try and make that difference and help people stay as positive as they can, especially in the winter months when it's all a bit naff after Christmas.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it I I think it's not just that, is it? It's it's looking at the resource as well, isn't it? Because you know, she was saying it's the balance as well. Because whilst ever she's in the hub talking to people generally, she's not seeing people on a one-to-one and supporting them. No, you know, you've you've got to find the right balance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. I think the other thing is it's times when people are particularly skint that mental health particularly struggles. So we've um done some work recently with our members to try and understand this a little bit more. And when we're looking at people that have less disposable money at the end of every month, and we spend a lot of time talking about people with negative budgets and that just don't have enough to get by, we know that their mental and physical health is worse than people that do have disposable income. And it's kind of obvious, but I don't think many people are really linking health and affordability as much as they should be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they should be, and I I think we're hearing this time and again at the moment. We've had a a number of people that have come on to talk to us that are support services that have come into our hubs, and they're all saying the same thing, really, aren't they? They're inextricably linked.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, what comes first, anxiety or finance? Well, actually, they both come at once.
Why Face To Face Still Matters
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And it's tricky to fix one while you've got the other, right? They they they kind of both work together to kind of hold you back a little bit. What was interesting coming from your conversation was around that face-to-face engagement is really positive. And, you know, our hubs are in-person hubs, right? So even though we're not expecting people to be social necessarily when they're coming to our hubs to collect the shopping, they are seeing the same friendly faces week in and week out, and it makes a difference. And so the other bit that's kind of quite interesting and links to the talking therapies bit is that even when people are shopping with us, just shopping with us, and not even engaging with talking therapies necessarily, 30% of those people are saying that just because of bread and butter, their physical health has got better. And a massive, like nearly 50% of people are saying that their mental health, their general well-being has got better just from doing their weekly shop with us, which is I don't know, I think it's a testament to the community and the volunteers and the vibe that we create uh when we're out in the communities. But it's really important that that to understand that what that engagement delivers for people, because it's not just a shop, it's far more than that.
Community Impact By The Numbers
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. I was gonna say this isn't just because they grab a bargain and they stretch the budget, right? This is about the community vibe that each one of those hubs create, and that's the CDDOs, that's the hub leaders, that's the volunteers, and the community at large. It just creates a really safe and friendly place that makes a difference. There's like a magic sprinkle on the community.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, agreed. And I think that's what you were talking about, saying that actually it's a trusted space, and people wouldn't necessarily go to talking therapies and go, oh, I need that bit of support. But actually bringing down the breaking down the barrier and getting the services into the hubs means that people recognise that it might be something for them and they can benefit from it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's free.
SPEAKER_02And it's free, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what's not to like, you can get support and it's free. So it's just gonna cost you a cupper.
SPEAKER_02Well, cost us a copper.
SPEAKER_00Cost us a lot then, yeah. Fair deeds. Yeah. I think my strong two takeaways, Vic, were that clearly we all have this issue around getting over that hump of talking about ourselves and our woes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh and I've got to say, whenever I've been out in bread and butter hubs, somehow that breaks down the environment they create just makes it easier to actually talk about that stuff. And then secondly, we just gotta keep banging the drum to all the service providers out there about how important that face-to-face engagement is. It really makes a difference, and I can't help feeling that that's why so many support services, when they come into us, see such successes. Yeah. Because actually everybody rented online, didn't they, during COVID? And we just need to change that.
A Member’s Brave First Steps
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I think people more and more are recognising that they can reach and engage different people that are still really in need of their services if they do do that face-to-face thing. Um, and those people probably either wouldn't know that the support was there or wouldn't feel confident enough or feel motivated enough to engage, but yet they still massively need it.
SPEAKER_00Definitely.
SPEAKER_02So, you know how I like a quote, Mark?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, I've been reading a lot of quotes from our latest survey.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02This is kind of a little bit tangential, but I think kind of quite important for people to understand about that mental health thing and how it's not always about I've got a diagnosed mental health problem and you know I'm getting this support. You know, mental health can be a lot of different things for a lot of different people. So there's one quote that I got that says, When I joined, I was so anxious that I cried when I got to the front and I had to speak to a stranger. The lady who helped me didn't just talk to me, she did it every step with me. I didn't feel embarrassed, I felt supported. Enough to keep going. It also showed me that I needed to get back to the world. So I went for a takeaway coffee and survived. And then I joined the library.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02It's good, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Well, it it's more than good. I love that, and that's just oh I I I don't know where to go with it if I'm honest with it, because I, you know, I'd I'd love to know who that person was. I'd love to know the more intimate details of that because that that volunteer that did that, or that CDDO that did that, they just don't know the butterfly effect they had that day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's kind of helpful to illustrate that they were clearly so socially isolated, mental health wasn't tip top. Yeah. Would they have said, you know, I'm really an anxious person, I've got all this, but they were brave enough to step into bread and butter, and then it was all alright. And then coming back to your point, it creates that trusted space that, like, oh, I've I've done my first step and it was lovely, and now I can do more.
Beyond Postcodes And Patchwork
SPEAKER_00So more of the same, please, talking therapies. Uh, I guess we've got to find talking therapies outside of Manchester as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And I wonder whether uh not to get you on a bandwagon or a soapbox or whatever, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00Um Okay, I'm accepting your triggering warning.
SPEAKER_02Uh whether this is a postcode lottery, and whether people in Manchester are super lucky, and then people elsewhere may not be so lucky to have this support.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But we can do some we research, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so let's do the research to get more out there, but let's also recognise that it is true that there is a local authority postcode lottery for many of these services. May not be for this one, but we've heard it time and again how so many services are ad hoc, disjointed, and please can we do something about it?
SPEAKER_02Nice. There's a good little plea there.
SPEAKER_00Indeed.
SPEAKER_02So if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at TeamTBBT on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_00And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or would like to come and be one of our guests, come and have an at it. Drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_02Lastly, we're open to new members at all of our hubs. If you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member pages of the website.
SPEAKER_00Which I'm sure at this time of year is more critical than ever. So please do all those things that podcast asks you to do also. Like us, subscribe to us, leave us a review, or share us with your friends and chat about us on social. See you next time. See you next time.
